Chicago Tribune's Scores

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For 7,613 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 62% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 36% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.4 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 Autumn Tale
Lowest review score: 0 Car 54, Where Are You?
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5,116 out of 7613
  2. Mixed: 1,475 out of 7613
  3. Negative: 1,022 out of 7613
7613 movie reviews
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  1. Shine
    All but sweeps you away with its dazzling technique and shattering emotion. [27 November 1996, Tempo, p.1]
    • Chicago Tribune
  2. The English Patient
    Boasts the elements of something greater than a love story. Too bad it devotes them to something less than a great love story. [22 November 1996, Friday, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  3. Space Jam
    Compared with the most recent Disney animated features, "Space Jam" is, at times, a hoot, especially when it has fun with Michael's less-than-stellar baseball career and the way his fellow players were starstruck. [15 Nov 1996, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  4. Breaking the Waves
    A movie about the passions of simple people, and it's done with such extraordinary empathy and commitment that it all but pulls you under. [29 November 1996, Friday, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  5. The Secret Agent
    This new version is quite faithful to Conrad's novel, not only in content but also in tone. [13 Dec 1996]
    • Chicago Tribune
  6. Set It Off
    If Set It Off had concentrated on easy thrills like that well-filmed drive-through-the-walls robbery climax, it might have qualified as pulpy entertainment. Instead, it's that deadliest of beasts: an exploitation movie with pretensions to social significance. [06 Nov 1996, p.1]
    • Chicago Tribune
  7. Larger Than Life
    Larger Than Life is far closer to Murray's worst than his best. It's a truly senseless, erratic, if occasionally charming comedy that manages to waste Murray, a fine cast, good location photography and a terrific actor: Tai, the 8,000-pound trained pachyderm whose considerable stuff was strutted in 1995's Operation Dumbo Drop. [03 Nov 1996, p.11C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  8. Thinner
    Thinner has its meaty moments, but overall, it's Stephen King lite. Less taste, less filling, less fun.
    • Chicago Tribune
  9. Swingers
    Doesn't really add up to much -- except a good time. But it's smart, funny and cute. With all that going for you, who needs to be money? [25 October 1996, Friday, p.H]
    • Chicago Tribune
  10. Jude
    Yet the film, no more than the novel, shouldn't be described as depressing. Both of them shine with heightened vision and poetics. [01 Nov 1996]
    • Chicago Tribune
  11. Get on the Bus
    The picture has such a sweet spirit, sly wit and buoyant energy that it seems to disarm potential rancor, fear or contentiousness. [16 Oct 1996, p.1]
    • Chicago Tribune
  12. Trees Lounge
    An all-too-familiar barfly story that often seems aimless. [25 Oct 1996, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  13. The Ghost and the Darkness
    It would be a lie to suggest that there aren't some crudely effective moments in Ghost and the Darkness. After all, this is a movie where two man-eating lions pop up every 10 minutes or so, growl and drag off another fresh corpse or two. But crude effectiveness is all the movie has to offer -- and even that is a mark it doesn't always hit.
  14. Microcosmos
    This astonishingly beautiful documentary employs microphotography of overpowering crispness and detail to create one of the most stunning records of nature the cinema has given us. [11 Oct 1996, p.J]
    • Chicago Tribune
  15. Mahjong
    Yang powerfully evokes a world of pervasive greed and brutality, where conventional moral values have gone dangerously awry and life is cheap. [21 Nov 1997, p.M]
    • Chicago Tribune
  16. The Glimmer Man
    It's strictly rental material. [06 Oct 1996, p.11]
    • Chicago Tribune
  17. Secrets & Lies
    Leigh is an artist not at all blind to the world's darkness and pain. But the generosity and togetherness he and his company show in Secrets and Lies is something the movies -- and the world -- truly need. [25 October 1996, Friday, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  18. Extreme Measures
    Extreme Measures is a suspense picture that should excite thinking audiences as well as thrill-crazy ones. One possible exception: fans of Michael Palmer's novel, who may wonder why his plot and people disappeared. But after all, in movies as in medicine, extreme measures may be necessary.
  19. Big Night
    May not have the size and grandeur of some of the biographical and political epics being released this fall, but I defy you to find a better written, more honest -- or yes, more satisfying and delicious -- movie this year. [27 September 1996, Friday, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  20. Surviving Picasso
    Surviving Picasso is an intelligent, beautifully crafted and engrossing Ismail Merchant-James Ivory biographical portrait of the century's most famous and successful painter. [4 Oct 1996]
    • Chicago Tribune
  21. Last Man Standing
    Violent and cynical on the surface, impassioned and celebratory below, Last Man Standing is such a carefully stylized film that sometimes it's hard to respond to it. [20 Sep 1996, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  22. Bulletproof
    A fitfully funny retread of "48 Hours," "Fled" and dozens of others.
  23. The Trigger Effect
    A sometimes-sharp, sometimes-shallow, cunningly crafted thriller that tries to rely more on ideas and character than carnage and crashes. [30 Aug 1996, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  24. First Kid
    Evans and Kelleher could have used the same premise to tell a different story -- one in which viewers could relate to some of the perks of being First Kid instead of just the inconveniences. Luke could show kids a more exciting world. [30 Aug 1996, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  25. A Very Brady Sequel
    It's the simple pleasures that endure, so it would be curmudgeonly not to share Alice's happiness as she innocently sighs, "That Sam is so thoughtful. He promised to slip me a special tube steak."
  26. Girls Town
    Instead of an escape from Hollywood’s cookie-cutter plots, it’s a retreat back into them, only the sexes have been changed.
  27. The Fan
    Something about baseball seems to bring out the silly side in moviemakers -- even in a movie like The Fan, which starts out well-crafted and deadly serious and seems to have good enough actors and a savvy enough director to stay that way. But halfway through this thriller things go haywire. [16 Aug 1996, p.D]
    • Chicago Tribune
  28. Kansas City
    Kansas City is a wonderful film, done with all Altman's offbeat virtuosity, maverick humor and creative daring -- plus the acid nip that runs through all his recent works.
  29. Tales From the Crypt Presents Bordello of Blood
    What is it about vampires that brings out the worst in filmmakers these days? [16 Aug 1996, p.2]
    • Chicago Tribune
  30. Escape from L.A.
    An erratic but enjoyable sci-fi action movie with an extremely bent sense of humor. [09 Aug 1996, p.F]
    • Chicago Tribune
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